A system for at least two-way communications between remote computers across a mobile satellite communications system, such as a vehicle dispatcher computer and one or more communications units in a vehicle, is increasingly in demand. Users or customers of such a system desire to track location of vehicles, avoid vehicle misappropriation, communicate with vehicle operators, monitor various problems affecting a vehicle and vehicle operators, and allocate costs of vehicle operations to specific vehicles in a fleet of vehicles. Efforts to locate, track, identify, and communicate with such vehicles has been enhanced by combining the U.S. Global Positioning System with a variety of hardware and software system components in a mobile satellite communications system.
The term “vehicle” as used in this document includes but is not limited to ground-based motorized vehicles including trucks, cars, and trains, but also includes ships, boats, airborne means of transport and the like. The term “remote” as used in this document means that one object is removed in space from another systemically interrelated but distant object or objects, or that one object has the capability of acting on, controlling, sending data to, or acquiring data from, such other systemically interrelated but distant object or objects, without coming into physical contact with one another. The term “customer” as used in this document means a purchaser or subscriber to a range of services and products provided in connection with a mobile satellite communications system.
As indicated, customer demand has risen for a new, useful and improved mobile satellite communications system having enhanced capabilities and features for communication among computers and users of a mobile satellite communications system such as Qualcomm Incorporated's OMNIVISION™ system (in this document, “mobile satellite communications system”). The vehicle identification system disclosed and claimed in this document significantly alters the structure and co-operation of structure used in predecessor systems of the mobile satellite communications system, and thereby enhances the capabilities of such a system to provide capabilities to a customer not available in predecessor systems.
For example, a customer-specific vehicle descriptor may be included system-wide across a mobile satellite communications system. This feature is useful to a customer that, until now, could only use a serial number assigned to the vehicle. In the past, when a customer subscribed to a predecessor to the mobile satellite communications system and desired information about a vehicle remote from a customer base station such as a vehicle dispatcher, the customer was required to contact the host operator of the predecessor system (in this document, the “host manager”). The host manager required the customer to provide the vehicle serial number as a predicate to responding to the customer's inquiry as one step in a host manager program to maintain security and integrity of the predecessor to the mobile satellite communications system. Rather than refer to vehicles by serial number, however, customers often prefer to associate a nickname or another customer-specific vehicle descriptor with a specific vehicle. Predecessor systems of the mobile satellite communications system did not permit systemic input and use of a vehicle nickname or other customer-specific vehicle descriptor, a feature much in demand in the industry.
A customer-specific vehicle descriptor available across the entire mobile satellite communications system also serves to assist a customer and a host manager in achieving proper business practices, including invoicing. Availability of a customer-specific vehicle descriptor enables a customer to determine costs associated with or allocable to individual vehicles, and thus with individual vehicle operators. A customer-specific vehicle descriptor available across the entire mobile satellite communications system also helps a host manager avoid invoicing mistakes or problems. For example, if a vehicle is disabled or inoperable, billing for services rendered in connection with that vehicle might continue unabated in the absence of a message from the customer explaining the circumstances. In the past there was no automated method to adjust invoicing to a customer.
For these and other reasons, a demand exists in the industry for a vehicle identification system that enables systemic input of a customer-specific vehicle descriptor to identify a remote vehicle operating within a communications system such as the mobile satellite communications system.